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Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Apple Season

Fall is definitely here! The leaves are changing color, the
temperatures are dropping, and football is on the television. I’m still
knitting and quilting, but I’m also doing more baking. As far as fall dessert
flavors, pumpkin spice doesn’t excite me but apple pie does!

In our home, McIntosh apples are a favorite for desserts.
Part of that may be because I grew up in an area where McIntosh apples were
prevalent. I’ve read that they’re not generally considered a popular choice for
cooking or baking because McIntoshes break down easily. We actually prefer that
softness.

Now, we live in an area where McIntosh apples aren’t as
readily available. We can find them, but they’re not at every store and they’re
only in stock for a brief period of time. Last week, I found them for the first
time this season.

One of the biggest lessons that I remember from seventh
grade home economics class is this: If
you’re going to go through the effort to make one pie, you might as well make
two.

I didn’t set out to buy all of the Macs, I simply picked out
enough apples for two pies. We like really full pies, which means I always aim
for nine apples per pie. After I picked out 18 apples, there were only four
left. I thought most people would look at those four lonely apples and assume
there was a reason they were left behind. I couldn’t leave them to languish
like that.

I had visions of creating masterpieces with beautifully decorated
crusts to put up on this blog. Instead, I had a houseful of helpers to keep me
company, and part of creating is learning what works and what doesn’t work.
They struggled to get the crust moist enough to stay together well, and that
made decoration less of a priority.

We ended up with one tart made from three apples, and two
pies made from nine-and-a-half apples each. We used fall-themed cookie cutters
on the tart and one pie, and playfully inserted a pie bird into the
other pie.

We enjoyed eating them together as much as we enjoyed making
them together, and that makes them masterpieces in my book.